


Long distance

by slut_for_jan_and_trixya



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: ANGSTY ANGSTY ANGSTY ANGSTY, Angst, F/F, don't read this if you don't like angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:27:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23558344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slut_for_jan_and_trixya/pseuds/slut_for_jan_and_trixya
Summary: Jackie and Jan's relationship is perfect. Beautiful. Some would argue that it looks like Linda Evangelista. But what happens to it when Jan moves to Scotland for a year?
Relationships: Jan Sport/Jackie Cox, katya zamolodchivoka/Trixie mattel
Comments: 14
Kudos: 24





	Long distance

**Author's Note:**

> Hi y'all. I hope you enjoy the typos.

Long-distance.

When Jan had first proposed the words to Jan before leaving on a flight to Scotland and taking Jackie’s heart with her, Jackie had been reluctant. Her last relationship with a girl had ended long distance. Sometimes Jackie still thinks about Nicky. How she’s doing. What she’s thinking. If she’s still with the blonde designer who she cheated on Jackie for. But Jan had made it all go away. All the fear, all the insecurity that she was so broken that she would never be loved. All the emotions, that raged inside her mind like a hurricane. With Jan, all of it calmed. The chaos quietened. And Jackie’s mind was left blank, filled with nothing but Jan’s bleached platinum hair that fell like a cascading waterfall across her shoulders in the morning, somehow perfect in it’s tangled state. Nothing but her creamy white thighs that glowed red in the heat of passion, the symphonic sounds that escaped from her mouth, the dilatation of her pupils, the whispers of I love yous. All the loss that Jackie had ever suffered was suddenly forgotten, all the rejection, the heartache, all of it forgotten in the chestnut swirls of Jan’s eyes and the soft curve of her hip. Her heart mended at the sound of her voice as she ecstatically belted the full frozen soundtrack whilst doing the dishes. Her obnoxious laugh when Rachel did yet another cliché, stupid thing on friends. The tears of joy in her eyes whenever she would get the callbacks from talent agencies. Slowly, day by day, Jan was fixing her. All the broken pieces of her soul were being super-glued together by an angel with brown eyes and a heart too big for her own good

Jackie had left home when she was 15, a child. 20 years ago, next fall. Left isn’t the right word for it. Beaten until bloody and near-death is more like it. The ghost of her father’s blows into her stomach as he called her a demonic disgrace to Allah. The memory of her brothers calling her “a disgusting faggot” thrived on the days where she would lock herself in the cabinet and rock herself back and forth. The memories plagued her. But the one that hurt her the most, the one that caused Jan to her to wake up in the middle of the night because she was sobbing in her sleep. The one that even Jan could not fix was the memory of her mother, watching as her father fractured her rips and bled her organs, remorselessly. And when he gave her a choice, a choice to keep this creature that their daughter had become, the choice to save her daughter from a lifetime of trauma and torture. She had smirked, sipped her coffee and proclaimed that she had no daughter.

She had met Jan when she was 27, fresh out of a toxic relationship with a girl who had fallen in love with needles instead of Jackie. Her heart still bore the wounds of Katya’s addiction, even to this day. But she’s proud of her. She recalls, Katya’s married to this girl, an odd hybrid between Dolly Parton and an actual Barbie. A kind girl. A girl who had been able to love Katya the way that Jackie hadn’t. But she’s happy for Katya. She really is. To think the girl who inhaled cigarettes like they where oxygen is now happily sober with a wife and twins brings a tear to her eye. But that is now. Eight years ago she had sobbed into empty cocktail glasses and fucked nameless women senseless to dull the ache in her chest. Then Jan came along. Jan. The beautiful, nameless singer in the bar who's voice had not only mesmerized Jackie but the whole damn bar. The first thing that had snapped her out of her depressive state. “La Vie En Rose” It was like out of a movie. Jackie watched as an angel unfolded her wings and poured her heart into a microphone. To this day, Jackie thinks that it was at this moment that she fell in love with her. Hopeless, irrevocable love. But she had known her boundaries. Jan had been performing, she couldn’t just run up on to the stage and try to kiss her or something. Well, apparently the man in the denim jacket hadn’t. He had run onto the stage, startling Jan as she continued the song in a tense puzzled tone. He had been drunk, very drunk. It was clear from the predatory gaze in his eyes. He reached forwards and re-enacted the events that have happened to so many innocent women worldwide. The jackass hadn’t even settled for a kiss. No, instead he decided forcibly pressed his lips against her, his hand traveling under her dress as Jan stood in shock, her arms visibly shaking from fear. Jackie doesn’t really remember what had happened but Jan has told it over and over to her a million times. Apparently she had tackled the man to the floor, ripping him off Jan and stomping on sensitive areas in her stilettos. She remembers what happened after though. Jan ran off the stage, her face clutched in her hands as Jackie picked up the man by his collar and threatened to knee him where the sun don’t shine if he ever came back to the bar again as the crowd cheered her on. They were perfectly okay. But Jan, Jan wasn’t. She had retreated to the safety of her dressing room, clutching herself as she sobbed into her arms. Jackie’s heart clenched. This girl deserved Paris, Milan, India. Not to be groped in a dingy bar in New York. She deserved to perform on stages where crowds chanted her name, to be beloved by all with eyes, to be cherished and cared for.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“I can leave if you want me to, I just wanted to see if you are okay.”

“No its-it’s okay. You can stay.”

“How are you doing?”

“I don’t know.”

“That guy is a jackass and though my name is not Karen, I sure as hell am going to be talking to the manager of this place.” Jan laughed through her soft weeping.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For pulling him off me.”

“Oh don’t worry about that. I’m a lesbian, it’s basically a civic duty. No man should ever feel entitled to a woman.”

“No man should.” There was a moment of silence as Jackie slowly crouched down on the filthy floor that most bars next to Jan.

“What’s your name?”

“Jan.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. No full name. Literally Just Jan.”

“I’m Jackie.”

“Thank you, Jackie.”

“No worries. I’m just the one nervous about you right now, do you need a ride home, are you gonna be okay?” 

Jan burst into a flood of tears as Jackie silently asked for permission to hold her and allowed her to weep into the cloth of her disgusting green sweater. God that sweater was so ugly. But it didn’t matter because all that mattered was Jan and her heaving body. She sounded like a wounded animal, her voice beautiful even as it choked on spit and salvia. Her brown eyes filled to the brim with the sorrow of the world. Her screams of pained frustration tore at Jackie’s heart, as she held Jan tighter in her arms. She understood. Really she did. The pain of when the world decided it wanted to hurt you.

“I needed this show.”

“What?”

“I’m broke, I’m getting evicted from my apartment next Tuesday because I can’t pay rent and my brother’s medical bills at the same time. So I either have to choose whether or not to keep him on life support or living under a roof. And now-now” Her trembling voice paused as she screamed into the ceiling. “Now NO BAR IS GOING TO BOOK ME BECAUSE OF THAT ASSHOLE.”

“Move in with me.”

“What?”

“I just broke up with my girlfriend and I have a stable job. And besides, I could use a roommate. I know what it’s like to lose your family.”

“Jackie- “

“I’m not letting you sleep on the street.”

“Why? Why are you doing this?”

“Because for some reason the thought of something bad happening to you hurts more than that douchebag's nuts will if he ever touches you again.”

And so they had lived together. Days turned to weeks. Weeks turned to months. And life was serendipitous. They formed an easy loving routine of Jan waking up to make breakfast for Jackie before going to her job. Jan then spent an hour or two playing with Jackie’s cats before beginning the painstaking auditioning process in New York. And when Jackie returned after a long day of teaching irritable children, she would either console or celebrate with Jan. Life was easy, it was fun. There were weekends of excitement and thrill. There was a day when Jackie cried because a kid in her class showed up to school covered in bruises because he had tried to kiss his best friend and so his brother attacked him. Days when they would visit the hospital with gardenias and lilies, hands clenched tightly together, praying to God that Jonathon would wake up. Days where they visited his grave and Jan sobbed on her shoulder trying to fill the hole that her brother left in her heart. Days where Jan tried to cook fettuccine and managed to light the oven on fire. Days of laughter and days of love. No matter the day, Jackie drowned into Jan’s eyes until one day. One day where the world exploded.

“Jackie, do you love me?” Jackie choked on her coffee.

“Of course I love you, you’re my best friend.”

“No, Jackie. You know what I mean.”

“Jan-“

“I’m in love with you.”

“Jan-“

“I have been in love with you since that one night that we watched Toy Story together and I started crying. You brushed away my tears with this handkerchief that smelled like roses. I have been in love with you since we went to that drag bar and you tipped the girl $100 and told her that she deserved it while she cried. I have been in love with you since you told me about your family. I have been in love with you since I told you about mine. I have been in love with you since you said a prayer in Persian at Jonathan’s funeral. I have been in love with you since you held me as I sobbed in that disgusting bar in Manhattan.”

“You can’t love me.”

“Why not.”

“People who love me burst into flames. They either realize that I can’t be loved or they grow tired of putting up with the broken vase I have turned me into. Katya. Nicky. Crystal. My parents. I can’t hurt you too.”

“Bullshit.”

“Jan, please don’t do this.”

“BULLSHIT. That is bullshit and you know it. Say it. Say you don’t love me. Say you don’t feel something here. Say that I mean nothing to you. Say that you need me out of your life and I’ll go. I’ll leave.”

“Please, don’t do this.”

“SAY IT.”

“I CAN’T IT! I CAN’T SAY THAT. I can’t say that my heart doesn’t flutter when you walk into a room. That your smile doesn’t make everything right in the world. That I wouldn’t give my life before someone touched a hair on your head. That it hurts me to see you in pain because there is nothing, nothing I wouldn’t give for that to be me instead. Loving you is joy and happiness and pain and hardship but damn it, I love you. I love you so much that sometimes I wish I didn’t. But you can’t love me. Everything that loves me crumbles and I love you too much to let you crumble.

“I’m not going to crumble. I am not some cookie, I am strong. I am a strong, independent woman who can survive on her own. I am a strong, independent woman, who can survive without you.”

A tear slipped down Jackie’s face. Jan would be fine. Jan was a fighter. Life had never been easy for Jan. A childhood of abandonment and poverty had toughened her to the point of almost pure independence. And Jackie was proud. Jan would leave her but not the way the others did. She would leave with her head held high, knowing that she did nothing wrong. Except this time would be the last time anyone left, because, after Jan, Jackie wasn’t sure that she could ever love again.

“But I don’t want to. I can survive on my own, I have always been able to. But I want to survive with you. I want to keep making you pancakes every morning and shitty burritos at night. I want to keep petting Goldie after you leave the house. I want to keep holding you just for the hell of it. I want you. And I’m strong. I am so, so strong. But you make me stronger. Nothing, nothing would ever make me leave you. I love you, Jackie. And that’s what love it. Love is screaming into the sky the words you’re the most afraid of even if you don’t hear them echo back. I love you. I want to stay. Let me love you. I want-“ She was cut off by Jackie’s lips pressed to her own as her hands moved down to Jackie’s waist. Tears pressed against damp cheeks and the two figures mirrored one another, harmonizing with love. It was like fire met water, two figures so different, so opposite yet still raging with an intense passion. Defying all the laws set by the world for the sole purpose of loving one another. Loving each other with everything they had for the hell of it. And so they did. For years and years, that’s all they did. Love each other for the hell of it. Until Jan said the words.

“I dunno babe, you know how I feel about long distance. Why can’t I just move there with you.”

“It’s for a year, Jackie. I’ll fly home every month anyways. I’m not letting you uproot your life for me.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“We can do this, I believe in us.”

“I know. I do too, it’s just- just that Nicky was the same way.”

“Fuck Nicky.”

“Yeah, fuck Nicky.”

“We can do this.”

“I trust you, baby.”

“Even if I saw the hottest piece in the world, I’d just call you and immediately she would look like Kathleen Turner.”

“I mean Kathleen Turner’s not bad.”

“Oh shut up, you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“It’s gonna be okay.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

But Jan had broken her promise.

Everything had not been okay.

Three months in, she had been in a grocery store. Jackie wasn’t there, but a lady named Morgan had told her the story. There was been this man. A distraught man. In his hands a knife. Jan had tried. She had tried to protect this little boy that he had been after. She had held boy in her arms, shielding him as the dagger plunged into her back. Shocked by the blood, the man had stopped, not before he was tackled to the ground by an enraged shopper as Jan bled out. As the love of Jackie’s life, her pride, and joy, her grounding sense, everything she had ever stood for, her heart and soul bled out on the ground of the grocery store a thousand miles away.

But before that, she had left a voicemail. In the frantic alleys of the baking section, she had left Jackie a voicemail. In her voice an air of finality that it had never once possessed. Jackie still listens to it sometimes, with a bottle of rose and a shit ton of regret. 

_“Um baby. I’m in a grocery store right now and there is this guy. He has a knife and he’s trying to go after this kid. I can’t let him to that. I can't let him stab this kid. I love you, I always will. You have saved me in more ways than you can imagine. You are my everything and if I’m gone, I promise you that I will not ever stop loving you. Even if you move on, and find some gorgeous girl to settle down with, I will never stop loving you. Whichever girl that comes after me, I hope she knows how lucky she is. And I hope you love her half as well as you loved me. I love you, Jackie. Goodbye.”_

Long-distance. Jackie had thought that they would be doing this for a year. She had not planned to do it for the rest of her life.

**Author's Note:**

> Bet you didn't think that was how it was gonna end. Liked it? Comment. Hated it? Comment. Couldn't give a porcupine's ass? Comment.


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